General Election 2015

Incumbency, close calls and money

This will make sense
later.
In January it became clear that the November general election would
almost certainly be a race between Nathan Schlicher, the appointed
Democratic incumbent, against Republican Jan Angel, a member of the
House. As I write this neither of them have filed to run, so we are
still operating on assumptions.

There have been cases in our recent political past where the
gift of an appointment might payed dividends. Would Steve Bauer
have had as easy a path to his election to the county commission,
and then Rob Gelder had they not been appointed earlier? I doubt
it. In those cases incumbency gave them a record and some kind of
reputation.

Schlicher certainly benefits from incumbency as opposed to
trying to challenge Angel with no official legislative experience.
The questions I wanted to pose were how well appointed incumbents
have done in the past, and in cases where appointed incumbents
failed to be selected, what happened? Sunday’s piece answered those
questions. We scheduled the piece for the Sunday before filing
began and “Happy Mothers’ Day, everyone!” I looked at legislative
historical records available on the Legislature’s website, as well
as news archives, to get some context.

Some side issues, interesting on their own but not contributing
to the questions asked Sunday, arose in conversations with
candidates and others, as well as in the research.

Issue One:
Because Schlicher was not elected, can he call himself the
“incumbent?” Angel said she doesn’t think so, but the dictionary
does not distinguish between whether someone was elected or
appointed. In fact, for many people getting the approval of the
local party would be harder than getting approved by voters. It is
worthwhile to note the distinction, because for many the word
“incumbent” implies a past election. President Gerald Ford was the
incumbent president in 1976, even though he was elected with a 1-0
vote. That’s an old joke that ignores the fact that Ford was
confirmed vice president 92-3 in the U.S. Senate and 387-35 in the
House.

Issue Two: If the race is close, which there is
sound reason to suspect it could be, so many factors could make the
final difference. In fact, in close races it is nearly impossible
to credit a win or blame a loss on any one thing. So many unseen
things can effect the outcome. “When you lose by 191 votes the flap
of a butterfly’s wings can make a difference,” said Randy Gordon,
who was the Democrats’ appointed incumbent in the 41st District
Senate seat. He lost by 194 votes, according to the state, but
let’s not quibble. If he were to pick one ingredient it would be
the national anti-incumbent, especially anti-Democratic incumbent,
mood across the country. But it could have been any one of his
votes in the Legislature, or a particular ad run against him and
financed by national PACs, or the money dumped into his opponent’s
campaign, or the Democratic Party not putting enough money into his
campaign. He said state party officials admitted to him they goofed
by not spending more on his race, but how much more would have
created a victory? This could be one of those races where in every
moment of being awake the candidate and their supporters will not
have a moment they can afford to relax.

Issue Three: Both candidates said they will win
by telling their stories to win the campaign. Angel added that she
will raise money. Since the story ran Angel is reporting more in
her campaign chest. On a separate blog a few of you took U.S. Rep.
Derek Kilmer, D-Gig Harbor, to task for planning to host a Star Wars-themed
fundraiser. I’ll be honest, I was surprised at that
reaction. I assumed everyone knew that a big part of a member of
Congress’ life is raising money to win the job again in two years.
If you haven’t listened to the “This American Life” piece “Take the Money and Run for
Office,” I suggest you set aside about an hour to get
yourself schooled. That Kilmer is raising funds should not surprise
anyone. I’m not saying it’s right, so don’t take me to task for
cheerleading the fundraising. I’m not. But I have a difficult time
faulting someone who knows he needs to raise funds to win a public
office for doing just that. Until finance laws change, that is how
it works. Even if finance laws do change, there is no guarantee
this kind of election begging would go away. If your problem is
that it was a Star Wars theme, maybe it’s worth asking what the
harm is in having fun with an otherwise ugly task. If I was hosting
fundraisers, you can bet one would be a Batman theme. And not the
newer cool Batman, but the Adam West version. Then, every time more
money came in I could flash signs that said, “Kapow!” or
“Zowie!”